Robotics are making leaps and bounds in all sorts of different industries. Robots aid doctors with surgery, work in manufacturing plants, and perform countless other functions. Now, we can add “pizza delivery” to this list, thanks to a somewhat bizarre and extremely welcome innovation by the Domino’s pizza chain.
Domino’s has announced that it will soon be able to take advantage of a charming little pizza delivery robot that can autonomously deliver pizza directly to people’s front doors. Dubbed the Domino Robotic Unit, or DRU, the robot will debut in Domino’s Australian sector. It might seem like a hoax, but the DRU is indeed real. Fast food chains are known to try crazy marketing tactics once in a while, like KFC Canada’s bluetooth printer bucket, so it’s not that far of a stretch that Domino’s would try something ambitious like this. The DRU has been tested in Queensland, Australia, and might only be the first step toward a future where the pizza-ordering process is improved.
Supposedly, Domino’s claims that the DRU can perform the following tasks:
- Follow a map to a destination.
- Navigate sidewalks.
- Avoid obstacles.
- Keeps your pizza hot while it delivers it to the specified location.
- Keeps your drinks cold.
Domino’s has been working with an Australian defense robotics firm called Marathon Robotics to fine-tune the DRU for successful delivery. Marathon Robotics tends to produce moving targets for law enforcement, state defense, and so on, for use during training exercises. Basically, the DRU could be assaulted by criminals and take a beating, while keeping your pizza safe from hungry street hooligans.
Robotic deliveries and autonomous vehicles, while uncommon, aren’t unheard of. For a while, Amazon wanted to take advantage of drone delivery services, but hasn’t quite gotten their service “off the ground,” so to speak. Still, the Domino’s pizza delivery robot is the first of its kind, and will likely continue to push innovation forward for new and exciting pizza delivery tactics. It just shows that businesses will go to great lengths to use modern technology to their advantage.
Would you trust a robot to deliver a pizza to your front door? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to subscribe to our blog for the latest tech tips, news, and tricks.
Bonus Robot: Check out Domino’s delivery drones from the UK.
